Man Etches Name In Sand, Visible From Space

   Gross opulence or a severe case of vanity it may be, but it's hard not to be impressed by this huge piece of graffiti. Or is it mega-landscaping? Or a new waterway? Frankly, it could be any of the above.

   Measuring 1,000 meters high, and two miles wide, the name "HAMAD" has been etched into the island of Al Futaisi just off the coast of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The letters are dug so deep that they form an artificial waterway when filled with seawater and it is so large that it can be easily spotted by satellite -- this landmark will be around for some time to come. So, who is Hamad? That would be the 63 year-old billionaire Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan.

   As a member of the ruling family of the oil-rich nation, Hamad is used to living it large. He built a pyramid to house 200 of his personal cars. He also built the world's largest truck, large enough to build four bedrooms in the cabin. Oh yes, and he has a motor home shaped like the Earth, exactly one-millionth the size... of the Earth.

   Out of interest, you can see "HAMAD" yourself by typing the coordinates "24.3442, 54.3255" into Google Earth or Google Maps.

Soichi Noguchi's Top 15 Most Beautiful Photos, Tweeted From The Space

Soichi Noguchi is a Japanese aeronautical engineer who is currently a part of the Soyuz TMA-17 crew and Expedition 22 to the International Space Station and it seems that he is one of the first scientists who got an excellent idea to share what he sees from space with internet users.

Soichi recently started tweeting from the space and he decided to show us some of his best photos taken from there which he shares with us almost every day via Twitpic. Here you can see the list of some of the most beautiful photos taken by Soichi Noguchi from International Space Station.

Amazon River, Brazil, photo taken on February 6, 2010

Aruba Antiles near Venezuela, photo taken on February 6, 2010

Ten Most Thanked for Scientific Discoveries

Here is a list of ten most important scientific discoveries of the past century. Most of these are vital in our daily lives and are used to further advance our abilities and understand the universe. These discoveries range from medicine & physics to anthropology & archeology.

Powers of Ten

An awesome documentary film that depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten. The video starts zooming out of our Earth to the cosmos and then travels back to Earth and zooms in to magnify the human cells, to eventually reveal the atoms. This short movie has also been adapted into an interactive website - Powers of Ten.

via: YouTube